SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello my SI friends,

As time passes and my H and I talk, process and live the dissonance is so overwhelming.

I asked my H a question a few days ago and although I’m amazed at how deep he’s dug, how he can articulate his own thoughts and feelings, how much he has reflected and sat with himself, his answer has gutted me.

I asked if being my husband was harder pre DD or post DD. He said that because of his behaviour over the years and how he was raised he ‘kept’ me as a wife, he was ‘fake’ because he had to be, he knew I despised people that were like him (people who were cheaters) and I’d hate him and leave him if I knew, he hated what he had done and wanted to delete it but it was always there, he always told himself that because he provided and took care of everything financially this overrode his sins but it was always there. He saw my emotional needs over the years as nagging because obviously he was giving me everything I needed financially and it seemed nothing he ever did was good enough, when we moved to our fixer upper home in 2018 he said that he struggled with my emotional needs, he noticed that also I’d sort of ‘given up’ trying to ask for emotional support and I was sort of a bad ass that didn’t need him anymore ( this is true, when I hit peri I gave up trying for emotional depth with him I just decided to accept him for who he was and love him warts and all) . When on the occasion I did ask for me emotional needs to be met he would see it as an attack, along came AP who demanded nothing and offered everything, he said the shit he’d told himself about me simply wasn’t true and deep down he knew that, he just didn’t know how to get himself out of the mess he’d created. He said his avoidant approach was to hold his boundaries and hope AP would get the message, get fed up and disappear .
He explained after DD, therapy and over a year later he sees his flaws, he sees completely differently, not having to pretend is like air, he explained changes he’s seen in me that he knows are because he’s shown up. He said to answer the question it’s easier post DD, but the pain caused is the most horrific part.

Lots of other things were shared but this was the gist of it, now it’s one thing to know in your head that your H is not emotionally present throughout your 25 year marriage, but to sit through a conversation without saying a word and listen to this, that you have been married to someone wearing a mask, you were ‘managed’ and ‘kept’ is the most real but gutting thing I’ve ever heard.

All I can say really is well, this is shit, really shit. I’ll give him this though, not in a million years did I ever think my H could ever do what he’s done this past year or so. I told him that until he could give me an explanation as to why all this happened then I will never settle, he told me he would give me everything, he has and then some. But oh the dissonance, how can this man who has cut himself open for me be also capable of such despicable behaviour.

How on earth my SI friends do you calm the dissonance?

I do not know how to answer your question. But I have some thoughts that may lead to new questions to ask him that may help you reconcile the way you view your marriage long term.

I think there were ways my answers would have been similar to his and we had a couple decades of marriage in when this all happened to us.

It is a little reversed. I stopped looking to my husband to process emotional needs or to discuss things I would like to change about our marriage. So in many ways that led to the disconnection that allowed myself to shut him out more completely while having an affair.

It wasn’t that I was tricking him. I loved him. I was committed to our marriage as much as he was. But these skills I did not possess did lead to a break down in our connection. I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted effectively. In a fact, I don’t think I knew all the things to say that I wanted.

It’s easy to blame the other person. I didn’t know I was masking myself totally, but in the rare event he would bring something up I would also feel attacked. I felt like I was doing everything I could on my end, not bringing up his shortcomings, how dare he bring up mine.

When I realized how flawed my thinking was, I too realized that my lack of authenticity was really just because I had learned not to be vulnerable with him. And from my side, some of it was he would usually greet my requests for more romance as "hey that just isn’t me." So he was shutting me down as well.

When we stop sharing our inner world (because of our own avoidance of conflict) then it can feel like a mask. I think this is not intentional deceit. I see it a bit differently than him because I am further out and can balance myself now with self compassion, as I have mostly dealt with the toxic shame that I was unaware of.

To me the mask he describes is a lack of self awareness in the coping and conflict management strategies i mostly was unconsciously using.

I can see that I wasn’t authentic, but I was as authentic as I knew how to be in our relationship. I didn’t go around lying to him or being deliberately malicious in standing our connection. It’s just that many of us do not know how to grow and develop the relationships we wished we could have.

So maybe instead of framing that as deception, it was more maladaptive - a person who is avoidant, not as self aware, not as good at connection (usually due to deeper seated issues that have to be worked though), and maybe not the best communication skills.

In that way I don’t think it was he was totally wearing a mask purposefully. Or that he even knew it was a mask. It’s more when you go through self discovery you can see how you created the entire situation, blamed the other person for parts that wasn’t theirs (I am talking aside from the affair- I never blamed him for that)

And I think what this actually set you up for, and it makes sense where you are in your timeline, is that it provides context for the new version of your marriage that you create together.

I am not sure I would say that it’s easier to be married now, but I would absolutely say that it’s much easier for me to be myself, to be accountable, and has presented the opportunity to practice new skills and a new appreciation for the life we have built together.

Your husband has done some outstanding digging. His framing will still evolve as he continues to grow.

I don’t know if that is helpful. I can only tell you that my intentions towards my husband was always good (until things had broken down inside of me so badly that i escaped into an affair- I would never label that as good intentions). My way of dealing with things was not - and I wasn’t trying to study that either. Your husband may have been more aware of his resentments the entire time, I was more of a rug sweeper, but one thing is for sure the resentments I did learn that I had were based completely on faulty perceptions. Now that examine things more closely and stay open to myself and to him it’s like your husband describes it’s as easy as breathing because I realize that it was my own insecurities I had avoided all along.

[This message edited by hikingout at 7:03 PM, Wednesday, April 8th]